THE IRON FIELDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 May 1919, Page 10

THE IRON FIELDS.

WHAT THEY MEAN TO FRANCE.

A prominent French mining engineer, M. Ch. emphasises the striking industrial and commercial significance of the restoration to France of the iron fields taken by Germany in the seventies. He predicts that the German pig iron output, which was 19,000,000 tons in the last twelve months before the war, and was rapidly growing, will fall to 15,000,000 tons, whilst that of France will be increased from 5,000,000 tons to 13,000.000 tons. The restitution of AlsaceLorraine will pUt France once more in possession of the finest iron ore basin in Europe, with the addition of the Lorraine iron and steel works. This iron basin of what is called French Lorraine covers 150,000 acres. The deposits are estimated at 3,000,000,000 tons. Ger[man Lorraine has an iron field covering SB,OOO acres, and is estimated to contain 1,830,000,000 tons. With the occupation of the whole of Lorraine, plus the existing French deposits, France will own over 5,000,000,000 tons of iron ore. Germany will be left with 1,777,000,000 tons; Britain possesses, it is calculated, 1,300,000,000 tons. Sweden comes next in Europe with 1,158,000.000 tons. The loss of Lorraine means to Germany the loss of one-half of her iron ore. M. Marquet predicts that France will produce as much as 40,000,000 tons of ore annually, and work this up when the necessary blast furnaces are built. Hitherto the bulk of French production has been consumed at homo, but with an innual output of anything like 13,000,000 tons of pig iron, which may mean 11,000,000 tons or 12,000,000 tons of steel, there will eventually be a large surplus available for export.